View full sizeTorsten Kjellstrand/The OregonianIntel's Ronler Acres campus in Hillsboro is where President Obama will speak Friday.

The marriage of the high-tech industry was nicely on display Friday morning inside a large conference at Intel's Ronler Acres campus in Hillsboro where President Barack Obama will soon speak.

Several Democratic political figures and their allies chatted and milled around near their seats not far from the presidential podium. It included several of the folks you'd expect to see at an event for a Democratic president: Gov. John Kitzhaber, state Treasurer Ted Wheeler, former Gov. Ted Kulongoski, state Sen. Mark Hass, D-Beaverton; Reps. Tobias Read, D-Beaverton, Jefferson Smith, D-Portland, and Jules Bailey, D-Portland; Oregon AFL-CIO President Tom Chamberlain; Oregon AFSCME Executive Director Ken Allen; and Portland attorney Bob Stoll, a heavyweight Democratic contributor.

At the front of the room was a stunning "ultra widescreen video wall," as one Intel techie described it. Thirty feet long and six feet high, it consisted of 30 plasma monitors hooked together and pumping out a steady stream of Intel-friendly images.

Maybe it doesn't have the glitz of a Steve Jobs presentation for a new Apple products launch, but it's a pretty arresting as political backdrops go.

Kitzhaber told my colleague Kim Melton that when he gets his chance to say a few words to the president, he has three topics in mind. He wants to talk to him about the proposed new Columbia River Crossing bridge, federal timber money for financially hard-pressed Oregon countries and "broad waivers" allowing Oregon to chart its own course on health-care reform.

Kitzhaber, of course, got expedited entry into the event. So did several other political figures, including union leaders Allen and Chamberlain and Stoll.

Allen said the reason why was obvious. "Because we've been two unions that helped the president," he said, adding with a bit of pride that Oregon AFSCME had broken with its parent union during the 2008 primaries to back Obama.